LGC Newsletter – December 2014
BRITISH RESIDENTS:
In late December,
British newspapers reported that Shaker Aamer is among the prisoners cleared
for release who are likely to be released by the US in the New Year. In recent
months, Barack Obama’s administration has stepped up its effort to release
prisoners who do not face charge or trial and are not deemed to pose a threat
to the US. Dozens more may be released in the coming months. The Daily Mail
stated “It is understood that he is one of 64 prisoners who have been cleared
for release and will be released in the next couple of months.” However, there
has been no official confirmation or suggestion of this. Shaker Aamer has been
cleared for release since 2007.
Earlier in December,
Hayes and Harlington Labour MP John McDonnell set up an all-party parliamentary
group on Shaker Aamer as “Further parliamentary
pressure is urgently needed.” The group
has received broad cross-party support and held its first meeting on 10 December.
A few days later, a group
of celebrities signed a letter in the Daily Mail calling for Shaker
Aamer’s return to the UK. The Daily Mail also reported that in response
deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg suggested that Shaker Aamer, who has never
faced charges either in the US or the UK, should be brought back to the UK to
face judicial process, showing the government’s continuing confusion about his
status and how the law works.
NEWS:
Guantánamo Bay:
Fifteen more prisoners were released from Guantánamo Bay over December,
bringing the number of prisoners held there down to 127 by the end of 2014,
from 155 at the beginning of that year. A total of 28 prisoners were released
in 2014, the largest number in one year since Barack Obama became president in
2009. More releases are anticipated in 2015.
On 7 December, 6 prisoners – 4 Syrians, 1 Tunisian and 1 Palestinian –
were released to Uruguay which accepted them on humanitarian grounds. All 6 had
been cleared for release since at least 2010 and the group included Syrian hunger
striker Abu Wa’el Dhiab, who brought a case against the US government for the
force-feeding of hunger-striking prisoners. The 6 men have not been subject to
further incarceration in Uruguay and some have since found jobs and are living
ordinary lives.
On 20 December, 4 prisoners were returned to Afghanistan - Shawali Khan, Khi Ali Gul, Abdul Ghani and Mohammed Zahir -
following a review of their status which cleared them for release. 8 more
Afghans are believed to be held at Guantánamo.
On 31 December, 5
prisoners, two Tunisians and 3 Yemenis were resettled in Kazakhstan in Central
Asia following extensive negotiations with the government there. The five men
are Asim Thabit Abdullah Al-Khalaqi, 46, Muhammad Ali Husayn Khanayna, 36, and Sabri
Mohammad al Qurash, 44, all from Yemen and Adel Al-Hakeemy, 49, and Abdallah
Bin Ali al Lufti, 48 from Tunisia. Tunisia is considered currently too unstable
and dangerous to return prisoners to and although in 2013 Barack Obama lifted a
moratorium on returning Yemeni prisoners who are cleared for release to their
home country, all releases of Yemeni prisoners from Guantánamo Bay since have
been to third countries. Nonetheless, in 2014, his administration was able to
transfer two Yemeni prisoners held at the Bagram airbase in Afghanistan to the
country.
In spite of these
releases and promises to release further prisoners, in the same month, Obama
also signed into law the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) 2015 which
places checks on his ability to release prisoners and close Guantánamo without
Congress’ approval. As in previous years that he signed up to similar
provisions, he made verbal threats to use his executive power to override them.
Nonetheless, with the “official” withdrawal of US troops and the end of
hostilities in Afghanistan, there is no longer any basis to continue keeping
Guantánamo open and may cause even greater legal problems for the US
government.
On 9 December, the
periodic review board cleared a Yemeni prisoner, 35-year old Abdel Malik Wahab
al Rahabi, for release, subject to some constraints, even though in March 2014,
it deemed it was too dangerous to release him. He was one of the first
prisoners to arrive at Guantánamo on 11 January 2002 and although he was never
charged, he was accused of being a bodyguard of Osama Ben Laden. Following this
decision, there are currently 35 prisoners being held indefinitely as “forever
prisoners”, who cannot be charged but are deemed too dangerous to release,
through an administrative and not a judicial procedure.
The US State Department’s special envoy for the closure of Guantánamo
appointed in June 2013, Clifford Sloan, resigned from his post after 18 months citing
his frustration at the delays in prisoner transfers. His job consisted of
negotiating the release of prisoners with foreign states. The search is on now
for a new envoy.
Omar Khadr will be heading back to the Supreme Court of Canada after it
decided to hear an appeal by the Canadian government against an earlier
decision to have Omar Khadr held as a juvenile prisoner, given that he allegedly
committed the offences he was convicted of aged 15; this move would facilitate
his rehabilitation. The decision comes as a surprise to his lawyers as the
decision being appealed was unanimous and Khadr has not lost a single case
against the Canadian government in the Supreme Court in over 10 years. His
lawyer Dennis Edney QC said, “So once again, we're
going back to the Supreme Court for a third time. The government will be using
the taxpayers dollars, as usual, and I'll be using my own particular savings to
fight on behalf of Omar Khadr”.
A few days early, his lawyers revealed that Omar Khadr, who lost sight
in his left eye in a gunfight in Afghanistan in 2002, is now almost blind in
his right eye too due to a lack of treatment over the past 12 years. He has a
cataract in his right eye, probably caused by a piece of shrapnel that has
remained lodged in it since 2002 and is currently unable to read or see
clearly. He is urgently in need of a specialist operation to restore sight to
his eye. Khadr has spent all of his time since his release to prison in Canada
in late 2012 studying for his high school diploma and is hoping to continue
with his studies to college level. Having been held as an adult at Guantánamo,
he was denied an education during his formative teenage years.
On 23 December, former Guantánamo prisoner Rasul Kudaev, 36, who was
released in 2004 along with 6 other Russian nationals held there, was given a
life sentence in Russia’s longest-running terrorism trial involving the largest
number of defendants. Accused of involvement in 2005 attacks on the city of
Nalchik, near where he lives, he was tortured and forced into confessing to
involvement in the attacks. His co-defendants were also tortured into saying he
was involved, even though they didn’t know who he was. The fact that he had
returned from Guantánamo unable to walk and had been seen by neighbours at the
same time was discounted in favour of torture evidence. The fact that he had
been held at Guantánamo, where he was never charged, was used as a hinge for
the whole case against all 58 defendants in the case. His lawyers plan to
appeal. He has suffered further torture in his past 9 years of incarceration in
Russia and has a case against the Russian authorities pending before the
European Court of Human Rights.
Extraordinary Rendition:
On 9 December, the long-awaited and controversial redacted and partial
publication (introduction only) of 500 pages of the US Senate’s report on CIA
torture under the premise of the “war on terror” was finally issued.
The document has confirmed much of what prisoners held at Guantánamo Bay
or caught up in extraordinary rendition have said for years as well as
revealing new claims. It has further sparked a false debate in the
international media on whether and when torture can be justified. The answer
should be simple to any literate person from the US or most of its allied and
enemy states that are signatories to the UN Convention Against Torture, which
in Article 1 imposes a blanket prohibition on the use of torture in all
circumstances. The debate has no doubt been sparked – and sustained even by the
so-called progressive media – to cover up the culpability of the US and its
allies and the fact that the revelations made could spark a slew of new
litigation or support existing claims. Some European allies, such as the
Republic of Ireland and Iceland have also sought to cover their backs by asking
the US to look again into US military flights that stopped in their territories
that have later been called “torture flights”, carrying rendition victim from
one location to another, when such flights stopped to refuel. It has also
raised questions about the role of doctors and medical professionals in the
practice of psychological torture methods.
The following day, Human Rights Day, 10 December, at the Australian Human
Rights Award, former Guantánamo prisoner David Hicks took the Australian
Attorney General George Brandis aback when he heckled him during his speech and
reminded him of his government’s complicity in torture.
In addition, a few days later, a pre-trial hearing scheduled in the
Guantánamo military tribunal of five men accused of involvement in the 9/11 attacks,
was suspended. It has been reported that the findings in the disclosed part of
the report could help their defence.
With respect to the United Kingdom, the report has raised questions as
well about the US military’s use of the British-administered island of Diego
Garcia in the Chagos Islands. The government has previously knowledge of or
that the US was using the site to torture alleged terrorists. Fresh demands
have been made that the UK hold an independent inquiry into the government’s
torture complicity.
LGC Activities:
There is no monthly
demonstration in January. Please join us instead on Sunday 11th
January at 2-4pm outside the US Embassy as we mark the 13th
anniversary of the opening of Guantánamo Bay on 11th January 2002.
This year’s action is entitled “Is This Who We Are?”
